Tag: growing

Shape-Shifting Fruits and Veggies

  • van der Knaap's team tests tomato starts for the SUN gene - the gene they isolated. SUN is responsible for tomato length. (Photo by Julie Grant)

Vegetables can be really odd shapes.
But what if you could alter fruits
and vegetables into just about any
shape you wanted? Some avid gardeners
come up with strange looking hybrids,
but Julie Grant talked with a researcher
who’s taking the shape of produce to
a whole new level:

Transcript

It’s time to start planting your garden this year. But maybe you’re tired of long, thin
carrots, huge watermelons, and round tomatoes. Julie Grant spoke with one researcher
who’s trying to give us some more options in the shape of fruits and veggies:

Ester van der Knaap steps gingerly around the greenhouse.

We’re at the Ohio State Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster.
The plants here are as tall as we are.

Van Der Knaap points out short, round tomatoes – and some odd-looking long, thin
ones.

“That’s one gene. One gene can make that difference.”

Van der Knaap’s team discovered that gene and isolated it. They call it the SUN gene.
And they’ve been able to clone it in tomatoes.

“You see this one is pretty round. It does not have the SUN gene. And that first one
makes a very elongated fruit, and it does have the SUN gene.”

Van der Knaap’s research could lead to square-shapes – something she thinks the
tomato industry might like. Square tomatoes fit better into packages. And, overall,
square tomatoes might be easier to work with than the common round tomatoes.

“They are mechanically harvested. So if you have a very round tomato, it would roll off
conveyor belts, it’s not very handy.”

So far money for her research has come from the National Science Foundation – not big
ag.

Van Der Knaap is quick to note – her tomatoes are not genetically modified.

You might remember the Calgene tomato which was made firmer by manipulating the
tomato genes with a gene from chickens. Van der Knapp’s just isolating the genes that affect the
shape of the tomatoes. Turning them on or off alters the shape.

Designer fruit shapes are gaining popularity. Check out any seed catalog, and there’s
a huge variety – some large and segmented, some pear-shaped, some oval, some
resembling chili peppers.

People have been cross-breeding tomatoes to make the shapes they want for a long
time. But this is not the same thing.

“It’s just funny, ‘cause my brother was working with some genetic things with tomatoes in
our attic.”

Dick Alford is a chef and professor of hospitality management at the University of Akron.

The difference between what his brother – and lots of other folks have been doing – and
what van der Knaap is doing is the difference between cross-breeding and locating a
specific gene that affects the shape of tomatoes.

The only other gene like this that’s been found so far was discovered by van der Knaap’s
advisor at Cornell University.

[sound of a kitchen and cutting veggies]

Chef Alford watches students as they cut yellow crookneck squash and carrots.

They’re trying to make uniform, symmetrical shapes out of curvy and pointed vegetables.
There’s a lot of waste. Chef Alford hates to see so much get thrown away. So he’s got
a request of Dr. van der Knaap.

“If we could get square carrots, it would be great. If you could get a nice long, a tomato
as long as a cucumber, where you could get 20 or 30 slices out of it, it would be great.”

In a country that loves hamburgers, Van der Knaap has heard that request before. But
the long, thin tomato hasn’t worked out just yet. She says there’s more genetics to be
studied.

Once we know all the genes responsible for making different shapes in tomatoes, Van
der Knaap says we’ll have a better idea of what controls the shape of other crops, such
peppers, cucumbers, and gourds.

And maybe then we’ll get those square carrots.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Gardens Going Mobile

  • Wilson City Farm is part of Chicago's Resource Center, and Tim Wilson is the garden manager. The 1.25 acre plot produces eighty varieties of eleven crops. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Urban farming is supposed to be a solution to getting fresh, locally-produced food to city folk.
The movement’s taking off because a lot of cities have empty, vacant lots to plant on, but there’s a problem: city governments or developers won’t let growers stay on those lots forever.
Shawn Allee met one urban farmer who’s not worried about losing the farm:

Transcript

Urban farming is supposed to be a solution to getting fresh, locally-produced food to city folk.
The movement’s taking off because a lot of cities have empty, vacant lots to plant on, but there’s a problem: city governments or developers won’t let growers stay on those lots forever.
Shawn Allee met one urban farmer who’s not worried about losing the farm:

Ken Dunn’s City Farm looks less like a traditional farm than a construction site.

There’s fence around an acre or so of soil. There are two small sheds.
And there’s a greenhouse – but it’s not glass or anything – its plastic strung over a bunch of metal tubes.

These are available commercially for about 1,500 dollars and will last for many years. This is the third year this one’s been up.

Dunn makes no apology for the make-shift feel.

“This is a mobile farmstead. Our fence that surrounds this property has been in three locations in the past twenty years as have the tool shed, and office trailer. So, everything here can be picked up and moved within a week or, if necessary, within a couple days.”

In fact, Dunn’s planning on it. He’s on land owned by the City of Chicago, and he has to move next year.

“Our deal with them is that we are occupying it until they sell the property. I think it will be having luxury condominiums. I think they have a price tag of 6 million dollars on this acre. As tax payers we have to take the six million.”

But Dunn’s not worried – he’s lined up another lot to plant on.
Dunn thinks more urban farmers should be just as mobile as he is by keeping their equipment light and scouting for the next available growing space.

Here’s his argument: City governments or developers might let you squat on vacant land for a while, but you can’t count on them selling it to you at an affordable price – or just giving it you.

Seems reasonable enough, but I thought I’d ask urban farming groups how they take this mobile farm idea.

“In my opinion, it should be permanent.”

This is Erika Allen.
She heads the Chicago branch of a group called Growing Power.

“It shouldn’t be something that you have access to some land for a few years and then have to move. In my mind, that’s not agriculture.”

Allen says across the country, urban farms have provided fresh food and even jobs.

She says mobile farming kind of let’s city governments off easy; if urban farms are so useful, cities should help them own farmland.

“I think once we were able to prove you can grow food in the city and it can be productive and beautiful, then it’s an issue of policy. What’s the priority? Why aren’t we relegating some of this space just for urban agriculture?”

Ken Dunn says he’s heard this criticism before. He calls his mobile farming approach a little more realistic.

Dunn says rural farmers can’t grow everything they want, however they want; they have to adjust to the landscape, soil conditions, and weather.

He says he’s just adjusting to an urban reality: real-estate markets value commercial and residential property more than farmland.

“We have to operate this sustainably. That is, working within the forces that are operating instead of hoping to always get 15 years in some hidden corner or somewhere and it might turn into less because someone comes in overnight and bulldozes your project. So, sustainability means keeping operative from year to year with no setbacks. A planned move is no set-back at all.”

With that, Dunn has to leave.
It’s planting season and he and his staff have a lot of work. They want this crop to be special, since it could be their last growing season on this vacant lot.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Farmland Goes Idle

  • Rice harvesting in Fort Bend County, Texas (Photo by David Nance, courtesy of the USDA)

The US is not farming as much land. Kyle Norris reports farmland equal to the size of the entire state of West Virginia has been taken out of production in the last few years:

Transcript

The US is not farming as much land. Kyle Norris reports farmland equal to the size of the entire state of West Virginia has been taken out of production in the last few years:

The United States Department of Agriculture surveyed farmers from 2002 to 2007.

During that time farmers stopped planting more than 16 million acres of farmland.

In some cases farmers retired. Or they just decided not to plant crops. Or sold the land to developers in sprawling areas.

Don Buckloh is with the American Farmland Trust. He says what happens to farmland should be important to people.

“They should be interested in whether good farm land is remaining available to produce the food they’re interested in eating. And then secondly just how strong is agriculture in the community as an economic force.”

While less land is being farmed, the USDA says there are more farms. The survey counted 291,000 new farms during that time. Most of those new farms are smaller operations.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kyle Norris.

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Using His Genius for Good

  • Will Allen, founder and CEO of Growing Power, Inc. (Photo courtesy of the MacArthur Fellows Program)

Experts say there’s plenty of food around the world, but nearly a billion people go hungry because of poverty, politics and rising prices. One man is working to change that by teaching people how to grow healthy food, in any climate, anywhere. Erin Toner has more:

Transcript

Experts say there’s plenty of food around the world, but nearly a billion people go hungry because of poverty, politics and rising prices. One man is working to change that by teaching people how to grow healthy food, in any climate, anywhere. Erin Toner has more:

There’s one farm in the whole city of Milwaukee, and it’s
not much to look at.

In the front, there’s a small farm stand and some grungy old
greenhouses. Out back, you’ll find turkeys, chickens and
goats – and all over the place, big piles of compost are
steaming in the cool morning air.

Will Allen runs this inner-city, non-profit farm, called
Growing Power.

We walk into a greenhouse that’s heated by compost, and
Allen pulls back a long sheet of plastic.

“I just opened up a bed and you see this beautiful
spinach growing here, and it’s Wisconsin,” Allen says.

This 59-year-old is a big guy.

He’s 6-foot-7, and ripped from his days playing pro
basketball.

Allen started Growing Power 15 years ago.

It’s a measly two acres, but it’s incredibly productive.

The staff makes compost to heat the buildings, they use
raised plant beds to maximize space, and they grow greens
and raise fish using the same water.

The farm sells a ton of food to restaurants and grocery
stores. It also gives food to local pantries, and sells fruits
and vegetables to neighborhood families at reduced prices.

“We have minorities that are eating processed foods
and getting diabetes and people aren’t living very long
because of you know the negative effects of poor eating
and poor lifestyle and so forth. So we’ve got to change
that,” Allen says.

Allen travels all over the world showing people how to
make what he’s done in Milwaukee work in other places.

The farm’s also become a training ground for local school
kids, interns and backyard farmers.

Last fall, Allen won a half-million-dollar “genius” grant
from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

He also gets invited to conferences by former presidents.

So, he’s become a sort of urban farming celebrity.

But you wouldn’t know it.

Allen says he still gets his hands in the dirt every day in
Milwaukee, and he’s always looking for ways to help
people who live here.

Growing Power’s newest project is with Rockwell
Automation, an industrial parts company in Milwaukee.

Every day, 1000 employees eat in the company’s cafeteria,
and that produces a lot of food waste.

Growing Power’s started hauling it away for free.

We’ve arrived at the loading dock of Rockwell Automation
and there’s lots of stuff in here that actually looks like its
still pretty good. There’s a couple buckets full of celery and
onions and a big trash bag full of lettuce.

When we get back to the farm, co-director Jay Salinas
starts unloading the Rockwell scraps.

“Of course a large part of it is compost, but there’s
always something in here that we can feed to the
animals, especially the chickens,” Salinas says.

Growing Power founder Will Allen says his passion for
food comes from his parents.

They made a meager living as sharecroppers near
Washington D.C.

“We fed people – our family and extended family – and
we sold food. So what I’m doing today, when people say
so how do you feel about this McArthur thing you won,
or this Ford Foundation thing or whatever you got, it’s
really my parents. They should be the recipients of
those,” Allen says.

He says it’s really getting back to the way things used to
be, when people ate healthy food that was grown or raised
in their own community.

For The Environment Report, I’m Erin Toner.

Related Links

Algae Fuel Aspirations

  • A net drags floating algae toward the boat (Photo by Ann Dornfeld)

Algae is attracting a lot of
attention and investment as an alternative
energy source. It grows quickly, contains
a lot of oil, and doesn’t take up valuable
farmland. Ann Dornfeld profiles one company
that’s trying to turn algae into fuel:

Transcript

Algae is attracting a lot of
attention and investment as an alternative
energy source. It grows quickly, contains
a lot of oil, and doesn’t take up valuable
farmland. Ann Dornfeld profiles one company
that’s trying to turn algae into fuel:

I’m standing on a pontoon boat floating just a few feet off the shore of a saltwater bay.
Two men are standing in the waist-deep water around the boat. They’re guiding a layer of
floating algae into a funnel that’s sucking the algae into a burlap bag.

(sucking sound)

It’s an algae harvest – and James Stevens is directing the process. He says they
have to be careful not to suck up young salmon or other animals along with the
algae.

“This junction can be turned on, and it allows me to feed water into a box where
then I can sort and make sure there’s no by-catch actually coming through the
system.”

Stevens is Vice President and Chief Scientist of Blue Marble Energy. It’s
a Seattle start-up trying to turn algae into fuel. Most algae-to-energy researchers
are growing algae in giant tanks. Blue Marble has a different plan: gather algae
that’s already growing in noxious blooms along coastlines.

(sound of waves)

Here in Dumas Bay, not far from Seattle, huge blooms of algae often rot in the
water. That process uses up oxygen and kills marine life. And when the dead algae
washes up on the beach, it creates a smell the neighbors hate.

Blue Marble President Kelly Ogilvie says these algae blooms are common
around Puget Sound – but that’s nothing compared to more polluted waterways
elsewhere in the world.

“And the most recent, I think, salient example was Qingdao, China. And the
bloom that occurred there was, I think, like 800 square miles and they pulled a
million tons out of the water and that is prologue to what is going to be happening
on coastlines across the planet.”

Warmer water can help algae grow, and some scientists think global warming is
contributing to an increase in gigantic blooms. Nutrients from sewage dumping
and fertilizer runoff from farm fields and lawns also help algae flourish.

“If you think about what is actually happening in our oceans, the algae bloom
crisis has just begun. And if we can find a way to turn that new crisis into a
solution to something else, by goodness we’re going to try and make a go at it.”

Most companies doing algae-to-energy research focus on creating biofuels for cars
or jets. Instead of liquid fuel, Blue Marble wants to convert algae into natural gas
and biochemicals.

Along with private investment, Blue Marble has a contract with the Washington
Department of Ecology to collect algae at two bays in Puget Sound.

The department’s Alice Kelly is watching today’s harvest from the beach. She says
her agency hopes this gets rid of the rotten egg smell neighbors have been
complaining about without hurting the ecosystem, the sealife near the shore.

“It’s very important to protect that habitat. So we’re walking a very fine line here
between trying to deal with the excess odor problem and protect the near shore.”

Blue Marble’s approach provides that protection, she says, because its operation is
based just offshore. They aren’t dragging equipment across the beach. And today,
it looks like the only by-catch has been other species of algae.

But some conservationists have big concerns about harvesting wild algae for fuel.

One of them is Kevin Britton-Simmons, a researcher at
the University of Washington. He says a lot of unnatural algae blooms could be
prevented by keeping fertilizer and other pollutants out of the water.

“I feel this is essentially exploiting the problem instead
of fixing it. I’m concerned if we allow a business to develop that’s dependant on
this problem, what’s gonna happen when we fix the problem? Will there then be
pressure for this business to harvest natural populations of algae?”

Natural blooms are a valuable part of the food web, and he says removing them
could rob marine life of a major food source. He says it’s also hard to distinguish
between natural algae blooms and those caused by pollution.

(sound of waves)

Back on Dumas Bay, Kelly Ogilvie says his company has netted nearly 10,000 pounds of algae from the two harvests it’s completed. The next step is to
use bacteria to break down the algae into natural gas and various chemicals.

If all goes as planned, Ogilvie says Blue Marble’s first batch of natural gas will be
ready any day now.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

Related Links

Saving Nation’s Seed Supply

  • Multinational corporations started taking control of seeds around thirty years ago. Now, ten corporations own over half the world’s commodity seed supply. (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)

Some small gardening businesses
are noticing more customers want organic
and heirloom seeds. Experts think that
trend might be important for the world.
Kinna Ohman reports they believe
those seeds might be the hope of future
food supplies:

Transcript

Some small gardening businesses
are noticing more customers want organic
and heirloom seeds. Experts think that
trend might be important for the world.
Kinna Ohman reports they believe
those seeds might be the hope of future
food supplies:

John Meshna points to a half empty rack of vegetable and flower seed packets in his
store.

“We’ve emptied this thing at least a half a dozen times this year. I thought maybe
we’d have a rush in the spring and that’d be the end of it. And it looks like it’s
going to be going through the winter.”

Meshna owns and runs DirtWorks – a green garden supply business in New Haven,
Vermont. He’s been selling organic and heirloom garden seeds for more than twenty
years. Heirloom seeds come from vegetables that have almost disappeared. And Meshna
thinks people want those types of seeds more and more because they’re worried about our
food supply.

“People call us just to make sure sometimes before they order, now, ‘these are really
organic seeds, right?’ Yeah, it says it right on the label. It’s gonna make you very
happy when you get that package.”

And it’s making certain experts happy too.

Hope Shand is the research director of Etcetera Group. It’s an organization that’s
concerned about corporate control of the food supply. Shand says when more home
gardeners and small farmers grow plants from organic and heirloom seeds, that helps
keep variety in the world’s food supply.

“This is an incredibly important service. People, gardeners, small farmers, urban
gardeners, are conserving, and saving seed diversity. No one else is really doing that
job.”

Hope Shand says multinational corporations started taking control of seeds around thirty
years ago. Now, Shand says, ten corporations own over half the world’s commodity seed
supply. And she thinks that’s risky.

“The seed is the first link in the food chain. Whoever controls the seed literally
controls the world’s food supply. We can’t afford to have the level of vulnerability
and dependence that that entails when we have a handful of multinational seed
companies controlling the world seed supply.”

(sound of watering)

“I’m growing greens without heat.”

At a small organic nursery in Hinesberg, Vermont, Julie Rubaud is one of those who
wants to get these seeds and plants to more people. For her, it’s not just preserving a
strain of a vegetable, it’s trying to match up those plants with the right gardener.

Rubaud grows close to eight hundred varieties of organic and heirloom plants for her
customers. She says that helps her connect people with the right plants for their gardens
and tastebuds.

“I always start out asking, ‘how much room do you have?’ And then I ask them
how they like to eat tomatoes. It’s nice to be able to cater everyone’s garden plan to
their individual needs because we have so many varieties.”

And if next year’s anything like last year, Rubaud will have at least forty varieties of
organic tomato plants ready for new gardens by next spring.

She wonders – with the economy the way it’s been – if one plant might do exceptionally
well.

“There’s Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter Tomatoes. Have you heard of that
one?” (laughs)

Radiator Charlie’s tomato has been around since the 1940s. You probably won’t find it
at the big-box discount-store gardening department. It’s one of those colorful, hardy,
productive plants that many people think will help bring back variety to our food supply.

For The Environment Report, I’m Kinna Ohman.

Related Links

One Genius of a Farmer

  • Will Allen, founder and CEO of Growing Power, Inc. (Photo courtesy of the MacArthur Fellows Program)

An advocate of urban farming will
be able to do more to get locally grown foods
to communities. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

An advocate of urban farming will
be able to do more to get locally grown foods
to communities. Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Will Allen founded the group ‘Growing Power’. Allen says the group tries to provide healthful and affordable food to
people who really need it. He says he’s mainly focused on growing and getting food to cities.

“Our rural areas are becoming suburban areas, and cities are getting larger and
growing out into suburban areas. And we have to figure out a way to feed people
with local food, and we need to come up with a just way of doing that.”

Allen says growing food locally and getting better food to people is key to building communities.

Allen is getting help. The MacArthur Foundation has recognized him with one of its ‘genius’ grants. He’ll get a half-
million dollars over the next five years to use as he sees fit.

For The Environment Report, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Weevils vs. The Mile-A-Minute Weed

  • The mile-a-minute weed (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

Sometimes biologists fight foreign
pests with other foreign animals. But that
can be risky because it can create a bigger
problem than the one it’s supposed to solve.
Sabri Ben-Achour reports on one of the latest attempts to stop a weedy pest:

Transcript

Sometimes biologists fight foreign
pests with other foreign animals. But that
can be risky because it can create a bigger
problem than the one it’s supposed to solve.
Sabri Ben-Achour reports on one of the latest attempts to stop
a weedy pest:

On farms, backyards, and rights of way up the Eastern Seaboard a pointy leaved thorny
newcomer is becoming increasingly visible. It’s called mile-a-minute weed.

Bob Trumbule is an entomologist. He leads me through a stream valley north of
Washington DC where blackberries and small trees are being swallowed up by this
invasive vine.

“So now we’re getting into the mile-a-minute here. Basically what it does it, it’s an
annual vine, it grows up and over plants, it smothers them, out competes them for
sunlight, and weighs them down.”

The weed is native to Eastern Asia: China and Japan. It was introduced accidentally in
Pennsylvania in the thirties. From there, it’s spread to seven other states. It prevents new
trees from sprouting in forests. But back in Asia, it’s not a dominating species like it is
here.

Judith Hough-Goldstein is a professor at the University of Delaware.

“Part of the reason is because it doesn’t have anything that’s feeding on it. It’s gonna be
without its predators so it can out-compete other plants.”

Over several years, biologists searched for something that would eat the vine. They
found a tiny, black weevil in China. It feeds on the plant and lays it’s eggs there, keeping
things in check – in Asia.

“Here are the weevils. I’m gonna give you a glimpse of them here in the cup. They look
almost like little ticks. I’m gonna put them down here in the mile a minute weed patch,
and basically what they’ll do – they’re tough little guys – they’ll climb around and in the
past experience have started to feed almost immediately.”

Up close, they look like little anteaters, poking around the leaves with long snouts.

This may sound risky. There are lots of examples where similar approaches have gone
wrong. A parasite was introduced in North America to control gypsymoths. It attacked
native silkmoths. Mississippi catfish farmers used Asian carp to control algae. They got
loose and are taking over the Mississippi River system and threatening the Great Lakes.

And Trumbule admits nobody knows for sure exactly what might happen.

“Any scientist that might say otherwise is not being honest with themselves or the person
asking the question.”

But he says a lot’s been learned since the days when any scientist could introduce a
species on a whim. These days, exhaustive testing and federal permits are required
before anything is released.

That’s why for almost ten years Judith Hough-Goldstein has been trying to determine if
the weevil would eat anything else. Tests were conducted in a U.S. Department of
Agriculture ‘quarantine facility’ with sealed windows and its own re-circulated air supply.

“So what we found was that, in fact, this particular weevil is extremely host specific. The
insect has evolved to depend on the plant.”

So much so that the weevils and larvae actually starved to death rather than feed on other
plants.

In field tests in New Jersey and Delaware, the weevils have decimated mile-a-minute
weed. Some researchers say it’s the most impressive biocontrol they’ve worked with.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sabri Ben-Achour.

Related Links

Dead Zone to Reach Record Size

  • It is predicted that the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico could be the largest ever (Photo courtesy of NASA)

A researcher is predicting farm
fertilizers will cause record “Dead Zones”
in the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay
this year. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A researcher is predicting farm
fertilizers will cause record “Dead Zones”
in the Gulf of Mexico and Chesapeake Bay
this year. Lester Graham reports:

These dead zones are areas where oxygen is depleted. No oxygen and much of the
marine life leaves or dies. It’s caused by nitrogen-based farm fertilizers that are
washed off the fields and into the water.

Donald Scavia is a researcher at the University of Michigan. Using U.S. Geological
Survey data, he predicts the dead zone in Chesapeake Bay will be the sixth largest
on record.

“The six other ones are also not that much bigger than what we’re predicting for this
year.”

Heavy rains and flooding across the Corn Belt washed nitrogen fertilizers into the
Mississippi River system and then on to the Gulf of Mexico. Scavia predicts the
dead zone in the Gulf could be the largest ever.

“What you put down on the land is what gets flushed in those rainstorms. And we’re
putting too much fertilizer on the land. So,
what’s changed over the last three decades is agricultural practices. What changes
from year-to-year is the weather.”

Scavia says better methods of farming could reduce the dead zones.

For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.

Related Links

Green Fuel From Green Slime

  • Roger Ruan directs the Center for BioRefining at the University of Minnesota. He's experimenting with algae that grow quickly in the nutrients in wastewater. He says the oil-rich algae are a potential source of biodiesel. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

When people talk about bio-fuels,
they usually mean ethanol from corn or diesel
fuel from soybeans. But there are lots of
possibilities. One of them is algae. Algae
contains a lot of oil. The US Department of
Energy experimented with algae for nearly
twenty years after the oil crisis of the 1970s.
But with fuel prices so high, scientists around
the world are looking at algae again. Stephanie
Hemphill reports one researcher thinks
he’s figured out how to grow lots of algae, fast:

Transcript

When people talk about bio-fuels,
they usually mean ethanol from corn or diesel
fuel from soybeans. But there are lots of
possibilities. One of them is algae. Algae
contains a lot of oil. The US Department of
Energy experimented with algae for nearly
twenty years after the oil crisis of the 1970s.
But with fuel prices so high, scientists around
the world are looking at algae again. Stephanie
Hemphill reports one researcher thinks
he’s figured out how to grow lots of algae, fast:

Roger Ruan has been trying for years to figure out how to turn algae into diesel,
economically. He’s the director of the Center for BioRefining at the University of
Minnesota.

Ruan says there’s no question it can be done; some people are already producing algae
oil. They’re growing it in open ponds. It’s used for pharmaceuticals, food supplements,
and cosmetics.

“Right now, based on an open pond system, per acre per year, you can easily get 5,000
gallons of oil, and soybean would probably give you 50. That’s 100 times difference.”

So algae can be far more efficient at producing diesel fuel than soybeans. But how do
you grow enough algae to make a dent in the nation’s energy demand?

Ruan is turning to an unlikely partner: the local sewage treatment plant.

“Wastewater has lot of nutrients: phosphorus, nitrogen, are all available in wastewater,
and actually you spend lot of money to remove these from wastewater, so if we can kill
two birds with one stone, that would be the best, and that’s what we’re hoping to do.”

(sound of treatment plant)

St. Paul, Minnesota’s sewage treatment plant sits on the bank of the Mississippi River.
The basement of the building where the solids are separated from the liquids is a
brightly lit space. It’s filled with big steel pipes and valves and tanks.

Off to one side, Ruan’s team is setting up a rack of aquariums – the future home of juicy
green algae. When everything is ready, some of the partially-treated waste will be
diverted into the tanks, where it will feed the algae.

The waste is still full of stuff that’s bad for the river, but good for algae.

“It’s got a fair amount of phosphorus, and some ammonia nitrogen that the algae are
going to need.”

Bob Polta is manager of research and development at the treatment plant.

It’s easy to see why he likes this idea: every day the facility has to remove 4 tons of
phosphorus and more than 16 tons of nitrogen from the waste stream.

The algae experiment, if it works, will allow them to do some of that removal in a more
cost-effective way. And this could be the answer to Roger Ruan’s problem of trying to
create enough algae to make enough oil to compete with petroleum diesel.

Polta says there’s a big potential, both for cleaning wastewater and for producing
energy in the same place.

“All the wastewater treatment ponds in the small communities around the state are
essentially using algae to treat wastewater; it’s just that they’re not being harvested. It’s
just that we’re getting two goals together here, and two research groups, one is essentially taking algae and
harvesting the oil and making biodiesel, and the other is using algae as a treatment
scheme, and to see if we can make this thing really fit.”

Polta expects by the end of the year he’ll know more about whether this is a practical
idea.

Roger Ruan says within six-to-ten years someone, somewhere, will be producing diesel
from algae on a commercial scale.

For The Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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